Among the variety of current perfume ingredients, very few are the compounds able to confer the so-called "honey" odor character to the compositions or consumable materials to which they are added. Among them, the most commonly known one is certainly phenylacetic acid whose scent is sweet of animal and honey-type [see S. Arctander, Perfume and Flavor Chemicals, Sec. 2492, Montclair N.J., USA (1969)]. Its animal note however is considered as being too pronounced and consequently its utilization raises certain problems to perfumers who have to seek proper accord in order to harmonize the overall composition.
We have now discovered that 1-cyclopentenylacetic acid possesses the typical honey note without however the secondary characters of phenylacetic acid and that, consequently, it could be used successfully to confer such a character to perfumes and perfume compositions or bases, or to perfume a variety of consumable materials.